


Iron

by beng



Series: Lucky Heart [1]
Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Sweeney is falling, Translation, Translation from Russian, a little something about death and carrying others' worlds, guess where to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: Where do leprechauns go when they die? Humans are guaranteed something: a continuation, an eternal hell, or pastures of heaven. According to your faith shall it be to you. Whatever a leprechaun believes in, in the end he is greeted by an infinitesimal nothing. Or by an all-encompassing nothing. As if there’s any difference. That’s where he and Laura are the same.Translation of KatrinaKeynes' "Железо", posted with permission.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Series: Lucky Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793143
Kudos: 9





	Iron

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Железо](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11742795) by [KatrinaKeynes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatrinaKeynes/pseuds/KatrinaKeynes). 



Not everything is gold that glitters. Not everything is alive that walks this earth.

It’s so stupid to miss the moment when a feeling is pierced by shoots of another growing through it. As if you could have changed something, if only you had noticed. As if you could have torn out the roots. Sprinkled with a pesticide—figuratively speaking.

But he didn’t notice, and it’s so very sad. Sadder than if the rainbow faded. All the rainbows in the world. Bye-bye, pots of gold.

He wasn’t afraid of the blood of others, not even on his own hands. Only his own, pouring like a river across a battlefield, joining with other lives slipping away, falling into one giant lake of accursed souls.

Where do leprechauns go when they die?

Humans are guaranteed something: a continuation, an eternal hell, or pastures of heaven. According to your faith shall it be to you. Whatever a leprechaun believes in, in the end he is greeted by an infinitesimal nothing. Or by an all-encompassing nothing. As if there’s any difference.

That’s where he and Laura are the same.

Maybe that’s why she feels so familiar.

  
  


Mad Sweeney has lived too long already. Even for faerie folk a “too long” moment comes eventually, and you can’t hide from it under a hill, in that unknowable place where time runs differently and pomegranate seeds keep you from going home. Would be great to end up in such a place after death, but unfortunately, it’s all too real. Some still believe in it, though it has remained beyond the ocean, under emerald hills, on isles pierced with fog and magic.

Or, take the Norse, for example. They also got a nice system going for themselves: die in battle and go feast for an eternity, and never grow tired of it. But their gods, however, apparently got so bored with it all they put on a show, with death and rebirth of the whole world. Say what you will, that's still entertainment. And then everything starts from scratch. Go figure what’s worse: cycles or nothingness.

  
  


When you kill someone, you also kill part of yourself. That—despite tales of Wild Hunt or whatever other gibberish people love perpetuating from mouth to mouth, from book to book, from post to post—is totally true. The faerie folk are attributed hollow hearts and an unquenchable thirst for hunt, but is hunt pumped only by blood? Can hollow hearts not fill to the brim?

Some mortals have iron building up in their hearts. No wonder the fae fear it.

Mad Sweeney was filling his heart with drink, at least the part of it that wasn’t filled with fear. He would’ve forgotten it completely, had Laura Moon not hidden sun in her ribs. Wasn’t even hers, by the way.

It’s easy to take away someone’s whole world. But what do you do with it? Especially, if that world refuses to die, asks a lot of questions, hits hard, and shines with someone else’s light. Light from your own world, by the way.

The dead should be nothing, but what if that nothing is akin to leprechaun hearts?

Laura’s heart now is a burning piece of gold wrapped in rotting flesh—you can’t weigh something like that on Anubis’ scale. Sweeney’s heart, more and more human, is bleeding, is hemorrhaging fear and guilt.

At the end of their road is the Well of Urðr, a dangerous truth and, possibly, the end of the world. Or a twig of mistletoe. Or a pot of gold hidden at the roots of the world tree.

  
  


“Just spit it out, and get it over with,” Sweeney sighs with frosted breath. The unasked question has made the air so thick it is hard to breathe. But what does the dead one care.

“Do you guys really ride the rainbow?”

Sweeney is torn between a sputtering laugh and telling the truth. He chooses neither, rolls his eyes and burrows even deeper into his improvised cocoon.

“Sure, why don’t you ask about the unicorns while you’re at it.”

Another question settles on her grey lips. Sweeney is not looking her way, but he still knows it. Same as he knows that actually Laura desires true death but is absolutely not ready for it. Same as he knows that it’s never too late to learn to live, but if you’re dead, it gets much more difficult. If only he knew also whether it’s possible to share after-death non-existence with someone.

He pointedly turns on his side, his back to the driver’s seat, and closes his eyes. Unasked questions slowly dissipate in the cold.

Someone else’s world, dead and glimmering, continues weighing on his shoulders as if Sweeney’s some kind of Atlas. Would that she walked with iron in her chest, truly. With iron hearts it’s simple: you just run from them and don’t look back.

  
  


They drive, following the light cast by Shadow. Sweeney huddles in a checkered blanket, Laura diligently ignores how someone else’s world is expanding her ribs. It’s unclear which of them is more alive than dead, they could both take the zombie shift at a gas station or at a 24/7 convenience store by the roadside. Both could do with a resurrection. Or at least a holiday.


End file.
